


2 am (look for the boy with the broken smile)

by thisisashittyusername



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, MY BABUES, So yes, Totally normal, Wow, and the pleasure of self gratification is nothing if without emotion, barely, i dont even know anymore, if you get to see beyond the shit level of writing, insecurities and insanity are like, it makes sense when you think about that, jesus what the fuck is this, masturbate to sad things, nice, okay, phone sex??, so lets masturbate to your insecurities and your repressed insanity josh, the peak of your emotional capabilities somehow, this barely makes sense, whats with the title even, you would see how fucking depraved this all is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:04:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5024050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisashittyusername/pseuds/thisisashittyusername
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a promise there, somehow.</p><p>--</p><p>in which josh is already a 'monster' before the events of the prank?? and he's only a monster when he's with who he trusts most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2 am (look for the boy with the broken smile)

2 am in the morning.

 

Sheets rustling. A soft, luminescent light. Hushed whispers. And half-lidded eyes that should have definitely been closed at this time.

“You know I’m here to help you get through it, alright?”

 

A pause. The silence is peaceful, but she knows he’s far too out of it to be that. “I… I know.” A catch in his voice. “-Sam-”

“You have to calm down,” she tries.

“I _am_ trying, just-” A hiss on the other line. “-Just help me get my mind off it. Their screams. Their faces.”

“Josh-”

“ _Their anger_.”

 

“It wasn’t your fault, okay,” Sam sighs, but Josh is quick to reproach.

“My fault, or their fault, it’s all the same. They’re _dead._ ”

 

Another sigh.

 

“I… I’m sorry, it’s just… I don’t know what to do anymore, and you’re the only one here… who actually… tried.”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything. You didn’t _do_ anything.”

“Well… I’m afraid,” he explains. “That I might hurt you.” He laughs, weary and torn and tired. “I- I might hurt you, too.”

“Hey,” she coos softly, gently. “I’m here, okay? I’m not leaving you. I’m _here._ I’m here, and real, and I’ll drag you down back to Earth if I have to, okay?”

 

“ _Sam…_ ”

“Josh. It’s okay. I’m _here_ …”

“You’re- You’re too good to me, Sam, I…”

“Ssh. It’s okay. You’re alright, okay? You’re alright.”

Rustling again.

“Just stay with me,” Sam urges. “I’ll never leave until I have to.”

“H- _hah_ … Sam-”

“Good, Josh, good.”

“I-”

 

Sheets moving around. Something popping- a lid, maybe, or a button.

She knows what’s happening. And she lets it.

 

Because this hasn’t been the first time it happened.

 

“Sam.” Josh’s voice is thick with need, maybe focus he hasn’t had in a long while. Sam needs to be that focus. Sam needs to take it, maybe only ever like this- anything to keep him from killing himself over and over and over… “Just. Keep talking to me, alright? What are you- What are you wearing? What are you doing?”

“Just a shirt and some underwear. The usual.” Sam looks around, surveying how she is, wanting to give Josh the full picture. She wants to give him that. She wants to give him _everything_. “On my bed, with that hotdog pillow you gave me on my 16th. I’m hugging it right now.”

“Oh, yeah, Hotsie.” Josh laughs, a little strained, a little distracted. But he keeps up with the words. “I can’t believe you kept Hotsie all these years.”

“Well, someone really special gave her to me.”

 

She hears a groan on the other end. Something she can’t- or won’t- describe flicking faster. A catch in his breathing, a slight loss of air, enough to be called a moan. It would have been very sexual if it didn’t feel so tragic.

He felt empty, and she understood that. She understood that most of all.

 

“You-” an audible swallow. “You were always so beautiful, Sam. Ever since Hannah first introduced us, it was always… so…”

“Josh?”

“I didn’t know what to do. You were driving me _crazy_ and…” He falters for a moment. A loss of volume or of gut, whichever. “Now you’re here to see me as that for something _completely_ different.”

 

Her eyes widen. This was… well… new.

And this was the closest she ever got to a confirmation. A confirmation that something was reciprocated, after all.

 

“Every single time, I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do when Hannah brought you home, or went to your house bringing me along with her… And she died, and I was so _afraid_ that I would lose you, too.”

Dead sister. Not exactly the best love story, but it was something.

 

“You’re always there- and, turned out, you never really left. But I feel like,” a swallow again. “I feel so fake. _Synthesized._ Laughing with _them_ as if everything was okay. As if nothing had happened.”

Another moan, somewhere. Choked off. Stopped.

“And with you, I get to be this monster. I get to be angry, and afraid, and confused, and I can have nightmares, and you just… go for it. You never say anything, like how I have to focus more on school, or how I need to keep up the meds... I become this monster, and I _want_ it, Sam.”

 

Somehow, she understands. She understands, because he’d always teach her basic psych back then- the sex related ones, of course, because he was crude that way. _People who have gone through traumatic moments in their lives may develop certain paraphilic tendencies as means of coping, such as sadism, masochism…_

And, as one of those people who didn’t have _anything_ to do with the prank, she understood basically how angry Josh felt. She knew how close they all were. And for him to lose _both of_ them, because of the same people he’d dared call his friends…

 

It was okay for him to become the monster. It was okay for him to be afraid, and angry. Confused, and vengeful. It was okay, because he deserved it.

And Sam _let_ it happen.

 

Somehow, Sam thinks, maybe she was a little monster, too.

 

“H-hah, _Sam…_ Tell me… Tell me it feels good for you, too-”

 

The hand on her thigh itches to climb a little higher. And with all the talks of death and mental repression, she tries really, really _hard_ to ignore it.

It’s sick, and it’s depraved, and it’s wrong.

 

But so was the society that chose to be unswayed by the _murder_ they did.

 

-

 

“Josh-! It- h- _hah_ -”

 

“Deep breaths, okay? Deep breaths.”

 

“I- it _hurts_ …”

 

“It’s gonna get better, I promise. Just... follow what I say, alright?”

 

Instructions. Assurances. A command- for whose interest, either his or hers, they’d never know.

A trip. A fall. Something wrong is done, and somehow, it hurts to feel it burn deep into your soul. (Or into your body.) But there is a promise, somewhere.

 

He’s a maniac; you know that now, and aren’t you scared? He could rip you apart, and play you like an idiot- just as easily as he could prove it. He could gain your trust and crush it away, just like how reality crushed his.

And aren’t you afraid?

 

Or are you just as much of a monster as he is?

 

This was never a game of who played who. It was never a game of which hand grappled your feet as you slid into the sanctuary of your bed. It wasn’t of whose reflection was on the mirror beside you, or who in the clown costume was hiding in your basement the entire time.

 

It was a game of holding on. A game of knowing when to hold steady to what you believed in, or what you wanted to, or letting go when you knew you had to. Maybe it was better to have stayed. Maybe it was better to have gone away. But there was a promise, somehow. It was up to you if you wanted to believe it or not. It was up to you how long you held up for that promise, and if you looked for a new one or not.

 

“Josh-”

 

Even the panting is gone. He’s gone away, maybe scared again of what that could have meant.

 

“Josh, _please-_ ” Sam buries her head into the pillow, her body heaving. “What does this _make_ us now? Just- just answer me already!”

 

_I don’t want to lose you, too._

 

His voice creeps in. _Finally._ “…The lodge, okay? This year’s getaway.” You could almost even hear the smile in his voice. Like _everything was answered to him._ And maybe it was, because like he said, Sam was always here. “We’ll settle everything there.”

She can’t help the smile that shines in her face. Because maybe this was what she wanted. She wanted Josh to be happy, and _she_ wanted to be happy… And maybe this was it. Together. “R-really?”

 

“Old lady, we are gonna bone!” he says in his usual tone, and Sam explodes in laughter.

 

But deep beneath the smiles and the jokes, there was a promise there, somehow.


End file.
